“For to everyone who has [and values his blessings and gifts from God, and has used them wisely], more will be given, and [he will be richly supplied so that] he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have [because he has ignored or disregarded his blessings and gifts from God] even what he does have will be taken away. Matthew 25:29 Amplified
Girlfriend, let me just ask you: “Are you using what you have been given?”
Sometimes I think that we over analyze what God wills for us to do. I believe that God makes His Will clearer to us than we think ~~ we just don’t recognize it; even when it’s staring us back in the face.
Consider this: He loads up your hands with things, but also equips you with the ability to use them. We serve a God Who does things intentionally. Just as plainly as He created the universe and everything contained within it with the intent for us to enjoy it and praise Him for it all. All things serve a purpose.
When God ordains you to do something, He provides whatever tools you need to get the job done and equips you with the ability to accomplish it well. He would not expect you to “wing it.”
So let’s get back to my original question: “Are you using what you have been given?”
Take an inventory of your preferences and likes and skills set and strengths ~~ your passion is usually what fuels those strengths. You even enhance and enlarge those strengths because your passion gets all your attention. You will tend to do what you like to do over and over again ~~ and by sheer virtue of devoting so much time to your passion, you begin to craft it into your lifestyle. Your passion becomes an extension of you and you are soon closely associated with it, to the point that others will easily see it in you and experience it coming from you.
However, if you have a passion for something that is not being nurtured or perfected and you try to squelch this passion, you could very well be in disobedience to what God has intended for you to accomplish this side of Paradise.
Do not think that talent and strengths and tendencies for something are simply dropped from thin air. If you are in daily communion with The Lord, He is outright telling you that these natural tendencies and likes, sometimes characteristics that resonate from you when you engage in particular activity is precisely what He wants for you to recognize and allow Him to develop within you.
Time to worry is when you see these strengths and talents begin to fade ~~ if you’re not adding muscle to them, or actively working to perfect them ~~ you may be experiencing God’s way of taking them back from you. Re-read our Scripture verse.
As for me, I have lived long enough to realize that I don’t want to waste any time ~~ time either to accomplish something or time that God has given me to praise and move in closer to Him. God is constantly at work ~~ so what makes you think that you shouldn’t be as well? As I read through the New Testament Scriptures, Jesus was always about His Father’ Business: Speaking, healing, sharing, loving, caring, feeding, teaching, reaching ~~ Jesus was always on the move.
Years ago, I used to think that being an ambassador for Christ was intended for only preachers and teachers from the pulpit. I once considered that only the eloquent of speech, the theological degree-holders and the ones “in those inner pastoral circles” were the ones deemed to share the gospel with their talents. But I have learned that all Christ-followers are ambassadors for the gospel. Because the gospel lives in us through Jesus and the Holy Spirit dwelling in us sets it in motion with divine power, wherever we go, Jesus ultimately goes. (That alone should cause us to guard our comings and goings.)
As an ambassador for Christ, we are empowered to use our talents to draw others towards Him. And Girlfriend, let me set your mind at ease: no amount of theological training beyond what you already have wrapped up in your testimony could deliver the gospel any better than what you already have in you. Just go and use it and watch God multiply it.
All too often do I hear of women sighing and laboring over “not recognizing” their passion or purpose. Sweet Sister, you are living and breathing every moment of your life ~~ and unless you are hidden in a cave, you definitely have a passion for something. Remember, that passion comes with purpose for use. Guard it by offering it up as a living sacrifice to The One who blessed you with it and go forward.
Girlfriend,
if you are genuinely struggling with identifying your strengths and talents, ask a few trusted friends or family members to help you recognize them. Sometimes our vision is clouded by a lens that is either out of focus, or our view is erroneously zoomed in on someone else. You are uniquely you. God did not use a “mold” when He designed you.
There are things that only you can do or say or share ~~ that would bring alongside of you the Ones coming up behind you ~~ to enable them to embrace their Savior that much more. Through the difficult times in your life, those unbearable moments which you thought were never going to end, with the most challenging people God placed in your life, you have been prepared to meet these situations and people head on. And you can ~~ with what you have been given. Don’t think for one moment that anything you experience this side of Paradise goes to waste ~~ all things are purposed, because you have purpose.
It is my prayer for you ~~ that you’ll see and use what you have to the glory of God.
Now, get to work.
I love you to Heaven and Back, Girlfriend ~~
LindaRJohnson
T2T Visionary
Titus Two 